An asteroid half the size of a football field will give Earth the ultimate close shave this month, passing closer than many satellites when it whizzes by, but it won't hit the planet, NASA scientists say.
The asteroid 2012 DA14 will fly by Earth on Feb. 15 and zip within 17,200 miles (27, 680 kilometers) of the planet during the cosmic close encounter. The asteroid will approach much closer to Earth than the moon, and well inside the paths of navigation and communications satellites. "This is a record-setting close approach," Don Yeomans, the head of NASA's asteroid-tracking program, said in a statement. "Since regular sky surveys began in the 1990s, we've never seen an object this big get so close to Earth."
"2012 DA14 will definitely not hit Earth. The orbit of the asteroid is known well enough to rule out an impact," Yeomans, who heads the Near-Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. He added that the odds it will slam into a satellite are "extremely remote."
Yeah that's what they told the dinosaurs!
Okay well may THIS catastrophe will be avoided, but let's face it our time on this wonderful planet is limited. And it shouldn't take a falling rock from the heavens to remind us of how precious our lives truly are, as well as how important it is too spend them giving and receiving love, providing comfort and allowing ourselves to be comforted, and learning something new while overcoming a past superstition every day.
We may, or may not, have very long, but remember it is the life in your days that matter, not the days in your life.
0 comments:
Post a Comment